Tenacious D's Date with Spike Jonze

TENACIOUS NC-17 The first album from comic folk-rockers Jack Black and Kyle Gass, a.k.a. Tenacious D, will arrive accompanied by a Spike Jonze-directed video for ”Wonderboy.” Gass describes the big-budget clip, set amid treacherous mountains, as ”a man’s search for himself and the answers. It’s really Jack’s journey. I mostly carry his stuff.” But for a real buzz clip, look to the Internet, where an animated video for their ballad ”F— Her Gently” is already a hit download. The graphic cartoon, created by Spumco (Ren & Stimpy), draws the Tenacious two as angels, graphically counseling Satan on matters of lovemaking. Initially, ”Gently” was banished to Grand Royal Records’ website (Tenacious’ managers co-own that label). Gass says that Sony, which is releasing the duo’s album, ”wasn’t keen on it” and hesitated to allow something so naughty on tenaciousd.com, a company-owned band site. But the label relented, and it’s now available there. Any other life for the cult clip? ”It’s gonna be on the Disney Channel. Nah…bachelor parties, I guess.”

BOTTOM OUT In Europe and Australia, the hotly anticipated debut from the Strokes—a New York band that’s already the toast of England—features a Helmut Newton-ish shot of a black glove on a white posterior. But the domestic release of Is This It (out Sept. 25) will sport a less provocative cover: a microscopic close-up of particle collisions. Did RCA America pull a Polymer and force the rockers to lose the glove, a la Spinal Tap’s mythical censored sleeve? ”It was straight up a band decision,” insists RCA product manager Dave Gottlieb. Indeed, Strokes manager, Ryan Gentles, concurs that singer Julian Casablancas ”wanted to change it for the whole world. He phoned and said ‘I found something even cooler than the a– picture.’ And I said, ‘Well, the a– picture is at the presses!”’ You’ll have to get the import, or one of the collectible promo advances, if you’re lookin’ for some tush.